The Tale of the Shinju Tree
by photojourney
Summary: One day, Sakura met a beautiful red-and-white wolf.


**Warnings:** kind-of religion, plot of Okami is considered real, real Shinto mythology is considered fake, basically just messing around with Shinto folktales and the pantheon

 **Notes:** hey! this isn't labelled as a one-shot, but let me just say that this probably won't be continued. it was just a quick thing that spiked to life at my keyboard for a while. i hope someone out there is inspired, though! i always thought it would be cool if there was a really big okami/naruto crossover out there.

* * *

 **The Tale of the Shinju Tree**

* * *

There was once a golden age upon earth.

But before it, there was a war.

* * *

The tale of the bamboo-cutter was a fantasy for children. Little did the people know that Princess Kaguya had indeed lived—for she was the orphaned daughter of the moon tribe's king and queen, sent on a spiraling rocket down to the surface of the earth to save her from a great evil. But one day, Princess Kaguya sought her first roots, and returned to the moon on the same rocket that had carried her as a child.

Only to find the moon barren, save for a wrecked and ravaged land and a bitter, fragmented tribe. But that was a story for another time.

Not long after the princess had returned to her motherland, her father Mr. Bamboo began to build her a palace. The man was skilled in his craft and had the eye of a royal architect. He could carry nine stacks of shoots on each shoulder, for his back was stronger than a mountain bull. But he was an old, widowed man, and the years had shrunken him to the size of a spotty, gangly child.

Still, Mr. Bamboo resolved to build a home fit for royalty for his beautiful wayward daughter. His hands, which were used to the asperity of the axe, were gentle as they cut small grooves into the woodwork and smoothened it into silk.

He had scarcely any time to work, for despite his skill in the craft, bamboo-cutting was a slow and toilsome business. The children of the village began to take his wares down the mountain for him to sell to Princess Fuse and the merchants. Then they would trek the way back up to his lonely little house with fistfuls of yen in their pockets. Mr. Bamboo always gave them their tips, and he was quite grateful to them. When he wasn't chopping wood or lashing frames, it was getting easier in those days simply to relax in the wheat and wildflowers at the foot of his front door.

His princess's palace was not large, nor elaborate. It had no earthen walls or towers, or the crystalline waterways of Sei'an City's courts. But Mr. Bamboo hoped that his princess would still find joy in it upon her return. So he planted a lovely cherry blossom tree at six different corners, and placed a woven basket made of twelve brilliant threads next to her bed. Then, he hung a charm next to the doors, in honor of the goddess who brought his daughter home and chased the darkness out of their world.

With this, Mr. Bamboo looked around and placed his hands on his hips. "Hm," he said, "This looks fit for a queen!" And he chuckled heartily to himself.

The old bamboo cutter seated himself on the mat next to the light of his garden, where he and his wife had once cradled their princess in their hands. She had been so small at the time, not much larger than the leaf of a tree. And yet, in those dark days of demons and plagued lands, she had been the first to bring them hope.

She must have grown so much by now, so bright and so tall, wandering the lands of the moon, discovering wonders. One day, perhaps when she grew homesick, she would return. And Mr. Bamboo felt peace, and was so strangely overcome with the vibrancy of love, knowing that his princess would come home to find the palace he had made for her with gentleness and care.

As the sun rose above the fields, the old bamboo cutter passed into eternity.

Princess Kaguya never came home.

* * *

Long, long ago, the Sage of Six Paths took each of his apprentices by hand, and taught them the spirits of water, earth, and root. They rowed out on the dragon boats, painted their fingers in the pure lakes, and offered herb and rice to the poor. Through his teachings, his disciples learned the reverberations of the natural world—the _prana_ of life which flowed through the vortexes of their bodies.

"I envision a peaceful world," said the young and noble Sage, "In which people of all worlds may pray love for one another, and receive it as many as tenfold through the rivers of energy that surround us. Will you carry this vision with you, my friends, so that one day it may come to fruition?"

The apprentices readily swore to it. Then, when the time came, they split paths.

The Sage met with a beautiful woman who claimed to carry an ancient blood, descended from the great heroes and demon-slayers. She kept in her safekeeping the golden sword of her ancestors, Susano'o Blossom: a blade which shone brightly in even the cruelest of storms. Together, they had two sons, Indra and Asura.

But when their father tried to pass his teachings onto them, the siblings would not listen. Their egos were in conflict with each other, both in heart and in mind. Indra was a prodigy, clever yet cold, while Asura welcomed the assistance of others to aid in all that he lacked.

Their quarrels pained their parents greatly. Meanwhile, many leagues away, the Sage's first apprentices bore children of their own—yet these new sons and daughters were ignorant of the cruelty of war. They grew fat with the spoils of their parents' hardships. They did not hear the gods that their fathers revered. When they prayed, they prayed only for themselves, and wondered why it would give them nothing in return.

Indra grew up to become a tall, fair man, with clever blue-rimmed eyes and long hawk's hair. One day, he knelt before his mother and asked her for the golden sword of her ancestors, in hopes that the warriors who came before him would help guide his blade.

His mother lifted Susano'o Blossom in her steady palms, and touched it to his own. "This is a sword that cuts through shadow," she told him. The ghosts in her gaze unnerved him greatly. "Promise me, my son, that you will never use it to take the life of another man—for it was this sword that slayed the dark beasts of primordial days, and to turn it against humanity would be a terrible betrayal."

With his head bowed, Indra swore he would only raise its blade against the demons of darkness. His mother closed his fingers around the hilt with a sorrowful smile.

Then he bound it to his waist, walked to war, and used its brilliant edge to split the burning flesh of Asura's armies.

It was only so—that his brother was the darkest of all demons, in his eyes.

* * *

Most shinobi did not worship. They were masters of the quietest arts, of knife and smoke and smothering cloth. More importantly, they were killers. And shinobi did not trust the gods to let them kill.

"What can the spirits do?" they asked. Not much at all, in a war waged by man. They won't even cleanse the death from your dreams. It is better, they said, to spend your thoughts on the power you can wield, the power which will save you. Better to train for your next kill than to entertain the silly thoughts of gods and goddesses.

(These shinobi do not know, however, that the gods do love them still.)

When the shinobi did worship, they were often in despair. _Oh, Amaterasu, save me from terror. Let me die swiftly, let my family live, let me say goodbye, please don't let me die_.

Amaterasu-oomikami, goddess of the sun, heard their pleas and felt their anguish. Although Yami's vessel was vanquished, a new darkness had sunken its roots into the blood of lost souls, bearing fruits that tempted the heart into enslavement. This demon held no form of its own, and therefore would not easily be slayed.

For many years, the gods lingered in the heavens, growing weaker as man's faith in them was lost. Ushiwaka the prophet foretold a harrowing future, wherein the darkness of the Shinju would ascend to the peak of its power and drag mankind downward into ruin. This would not bode well, the gods thought.

But Amaterasu herself could not descend onto the battlefield. _Now_ , she thought as she looked down on the land; it was sick with grief and wrought with turmoil. _Now. We must hunt now._

Ushiwaka, who was clever in the mind, shook his head and said, "Not yet."

"The lines are drawn," rumbled Bakugami, god of boars.

"She must cleanse the earth," cried Moegami, god of birds.

Yet Ushiwaka, who could outwit any being, shook his golden head once more. "You must do so," he told Amaterasu. "But not yet."

* * *

Decades ago, there had been a boy with scarlet eyes and silver hair, who grew up next to one of the last shrines that was built for her, the goddess Amaterasu. That boy painted the crisp red lines of the gods across his cheeks and beneath the curve of his lip. With a roar in his heart, he called Gekigami's lightning to his pommel. On the battle field, his every step was a howl and a thunderstrike.

He, Tobirama, was a child of the wood-weavers. His brother Hashirama knew Amaterasu's earth, and lifted blossoming trees from the rubble, rejuvinating the land. Yet these brothers had turned against their age-old siblings: Indra's sons, the Uchiha, who spun the sun's flares and swung with the strength of the demon-slayers, Nagi and Susano'o. So when Tobirama screamed to the heavens to vanquish them, the god of the maelstroms could not obey. The god would not condone this fratricide.

Once, long ago, Amaterasu had fought side-by-side with both of those men, wielding fire, flower, and glaive. Since then, the harmony had been divided. Her powers were scattered carelessly across the clans, who used them to kill their ancient kin. "They are brothers, bound by time," spoke Kasugami, she of wool and mist on lakes. "They are the family of the same spilled blood, and so one shall not fall without the other. This is the balance of all things."

The goddess Kasugami had spoken true. One day Uchiha Izuna, brother to Madara, lay his forehead on the stones of Izanagi's temple and begged the gods for the gift of flight, the power to bring Tobirama to his knees.

His wish was not ignored. And Kazegami, he of steeds and sprinting winds, said this to Gekigami, the tiger god of storms: "May the Uchiha be swift, and the Senju be strong! There will come a time when no walls of the heart shall divide these men of the sun. But for now, on the battlefield, there is work to be done."

And so Kazegami and Gekigami met in the war as the sparks between swords, chasing each other's tails. They were equal in strength, and unceasing. And thus the balance was kept.

Tobirama took Izuna's life. The future he had killed for would take away his brother's.

* * *

Sei'an City had a saying: beat your evils six different ways before hanging them up to dry. After all, evil was a tricky ghost. The humans said many dark things in this world were simply older evils, given time to grow because they hadn't been disposed of properly.

Kurama adored that little saying. He liked to laugh at it in his head. Sometimes he'd laugh even harder upon remembering that Sei'an City had crashed and burned, because its people had actually believed that their so-called-"evils" could be beaten.

He was born, like the rest of his siblings, from the chakra of his grandmother's monstrous husk, under the light of a blooming red moon. If Kaguya had gained her powers from the rooting of a dark seed, then the tailed beasts were—by extention—the creations of that mother tree. And if the shadowed Shinju tree was the new apostle of darkness, fed and watered by the vices of humans in conflict…well. Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that the ancient ghost of the nine-tailed king had stirred and jumped at the chance of a revival.

Long, long ago, in the primal age of demonkind, the Ninetails had reigned beautifully. He was golden as the manmade coin, as luminous as the moon. None of this spidery gauntness that clung to him now. He had been molten, wicked grace, with the power to shape the man-infested earth to his whim and will.

The Ninetails had given man fear. And man, the ungrateful pest, had tried to flee. So he gave them the plagues, to teach them their place. It was he who trapped the dragonians and starved them in their caves, he who ruled above Orochi and the demon twins, and it was he who tamed man, who taught man terror.

He used the gifts of the venerable Yami in savage, unrepentant skill: white inferno, bitter hail, swords of ink within his tails. He had tricked the goddess Amaterasu with sly words, had turned her power against her.

He was man's eternal. He was God.

And then he had fallen, struck down by Amaterasu's sunrise—that clever little wretch, the bane of his undoing.

The Sage his father then revived him, centuries after his fall. And the newborn _Kurama_ respected his debts. He could come to respect man, his new father's ally. Perhaps he would abide by the oomikami's will. Lord Yami was dead, and Kurama considered this new taste of unfamiliar freedom. For a short time he lived in an open space, a liberating breath away of the dark.

Then the shinobi turned on him with scarlet eyes and the goddess's flares. Kurama should have known, of course, that man was not worthy of his respect. He had been gullible. Naïve. It led him here, coddled in the womb of a woman with stakes and chains, to rot until the time came to switch between prisons.

At times, Kurama cackled, remembering Amaterasu's karmic law. At others, Kurama howled, snarling the old curses at his cage.

"I am the Ninetails," he growled into Uzumaki Mito's deaf ears. "I roamed this earth long before your mother-wench made _sweat_ to your bastard father. I can bring your gods to their knees, I can and _will_ devour you and everything that gives you sentiment. You will die in my jaws, little girl, I will tear the _marrow_ from your bones, I will—"

His jailer hummed while pressing windflowers. After a while, Kurama fell asleep.

* * *

 _Now_ , thought Amaterasu as she waited in the Celestial Plains. "Now," cried the people of the Pure Lands. "Now," cried the gods and the goddesses, their brethren. Now Amaterasu must fall!

"Not yet," warned Ushiwaka.

So Amaterasu-omikami took the soul of a man moments before his birth, and breathed into him the flames of her Divine Retribution, until the Will of Fire burned within him brighter than all others. Then, the dragon god Yomigami carried him down to the mortal realm on the backs of his scales, and gave him to the womb of a kindly mother.

Her child was born with soft white hair and red marks around his eyes. His parents named him Jiraiya.

For as long as she must wait, he would fight in Amaterasu's stead.

"He looks like a god of his own," said Tachigami, the rending god of mice, as he watched the small boy find his first feet. He found their new hero to be greatly amusing, and wondered how he would fair.

* * *

There were many powerful demons who thrived in the era of Yami, Lord of Darkness.

The eight-headed serpent Orochi lived next to Kamiki Village, in a cavern beneath the moon. Each year, he would shoot a white arrow into one of the rooftops, and the maiden who lived beneath it would take the lonely road to his cavern with nothing but her family's healthiest ox. Thus her friends and family would be permitted to see the sun rise the next day, and the days beyond that, right up until the very next sacrifice.

Orochi was slain thrice. Once by Nagi, a second time by Susano'o, a third time by Amaterasu herself in Demon Lord Yami's halls. Yet even now, the serpent's spirit still lingered.

To kill a demon everlasting meant to kill the shadow of his deeds. Orochi was turned to legend years ago, and thus lived, for nothing could kill the word of spoken tongue. He was sung praise by his sons and daughters, the white snake-children of the rivers and lakes. They hung diamond skins over their doors and tinted their _sake_ with iris and foxglove. The murkiest of waters would simply slide off the oils in their skin, down their midnight curtains of hair. It was they who taught the samurai how to fear the dark water. Through them, Orochi lived.

The serpent's children were cursed with the burden of endless sacrifice. They fell in clusters, here and there, until only one remained: a little boy with paper skin and golden eyes, who seethed in the village hidden in leaves. In the heavens, Ushiwaka foretold a tragedy.

Nuregami, she of snakes and holy smoke, shook within the glasses of her ewer. She hissed, in a voice diluted, "What a life he will live—this misguided boy, the last of Orochi's legacy. He will cause an era of suffering and fear, and when the serpent's shadow falls, he will drown himself in his own poisons. Where is the justice in this tale?"

"There is none," said Kazegami. "Only an ending just as swift as the death that will take."

Oh, how Nuregami writhed in her coils and said, "It is a wretched life, without freedom. This boy is the son of the demon serpent, but his heart lies with the snakes, my children. He is their cousin, my kin, the last of all curse-bearers."

Kabegami, goddess of cats, walls, and spaces, stirred with interest at these words. "Aha, you intend to act? But you cannot stop him on the path he has taken."

"No, but I may see him through it, past the darkness that lies ahead. Perhaps then this son of Orochi will be enlightened, his poisons purified."

Thus Nuregami descended from the Celestial Plains to watch over her serpentine boy, just as Yomigami had done. With her silent guidance, her child would certainly live to see the end of this dark age, and perhaps the new world that lay ahead.

In the village of fire and shadows, the snakes offered Orochimaru his mother's summoning contract.

* * *

Years after the time of the warring clans, Jiraiya met a boy with golden locks, and a will so fierce that Amaterasu thought she must have let some of her flames escape into the heart and soul of this child. Kazegami and Gekigami felt the depth of his purity. Together in the mortal realm they met at his side, to be the wings that would bring the _namikaze_ forward.

 _Now_. Amaterasu crouched at the edge of the clouds, hanging by only the balance of her toes. _Now!_

"Soon," promised Ushiwaka, his fingers drumming on his flute. "Not now, not yet. But soon."

And so, from above, Amaterasu continued to watch Jiraiya grow. Dragons were long lost to the world, but they lived still in the memories of the toads. Yomigami's nieces and nephews treated him to berries and fish, and a second home in the mountain of livingstones.

At some decisive point in time, he took a rather peculiar path. Their young hero of fire, Jiraiya the Toad Sage, turned his head to the brewery of lovemaking and the suppleness of a woman's steamed skin. His antics reminded Amaterasu of Issun's—only wilder, and with even less tact.

Amaterasu looked on, and felt bewildered.

Tachigami's laughter could be heard echoing throughout all of the Celestial Plains.

* * *

"Why do you think your father is the clan head, Juhi-kun?"

Juhi tapped his fingers along his square, jutting jaw. "'Cause he's the strongest, Yasou-baa-san. He can beat everyone else in the clan! Ain't that right?" He dragged his finicky little sister into his lap.

"That's right," said Yasou as she gazed at the trees, standing in the heat of the light. "But there is more to it than that, little pup. Your father is the son of a strong line of warriors. Do you remember the story of Hayashi and Ryoushi, the founders of our clan?"

He gives her a toothy grin. "Yeah, that's one of Tsume's favorites. Isn't it, imouto?"

The girl snatched up his thumb and stuck it in her mouth to gnaw on. That was alright. He had tough skin, anyway.

Yasou chuckled. "Hayashi the human and Ryoushi the hound were the ones who gave our ancestors a pack. But Ryoushi was not always Hayashi's companion. Many years ago, when he was a pup no larger than your fist, Ryoushi the Brave ran with a pack of eight hounds called the Canine Warriors."

Juhi glanced up in the middle of tweaking Tsume's cheeks. "Hey, but that must've been way back before the first clans, right? Baa-san, that's ages ago!"

"Yes, this was many centuries before our time, when the Canine Warriors lived. Remember this well, pup." She flashed her fangs at him, forcing him to still. "The first eight were said to be the strongest of all dogs. Rei the Honorable, Shin the Faithful, Chi the Knowledgeable, Ko the Wise, Tei the Compassionate, Gi the Dutiful, Jin the Fair…and Chu the Loyal, Ryoushi's sire. They guarded the shrine of the great wind spirits in a village long forgotten."

"So what's that gotta do with Dad?"

"Was I not getting there, whelp?" Yasou snapped. She watched Juhi shrink back with a stern silver eye. "The Eight Canine Warriors were the companions of a noblewoman, a princess. Legend says she was the first person to bond with her ninken, just as we do today."

Juhi snorted, then bowed his head at the elder's sharp glare. "But princesses 're weak," he muttered.

She let out a rasp of laughter. "Oh, no, little pup. Not this one. They say, when her husband died to a powerful demon, it was she who took her pack to the demon's den and brought the wrath of the gods upon that wrongdoer. Yes…yes, she was worthy of fighting alongside our ancestors." Slowly, Yasou leaned forward, until Juhi could taste the rank meat in her breath. "Listen here, Juhi-kun. Before her husband died, they had eloped—she whelped not ten months later, and it is your line which carries her honorable blood."

"So—So I'm her descendant? Me an' Dad an' li'l Tsume?"

"Of course. You have her spirit."

"Abwaph," his sister says.

A slow grin spread across Juhi's face. "That's awesome! We're like royalty! But, uh—" He rubs his cheek. "What about the Hatake Clan, Yasou-baa-san? Is it true that we're long-lost cousins, like the other clans say?"

Yasou scoffed. "Since when did you start listening to outsiders, pup? Ignorant, the whole lot of them." Her lips curled. "The Hatake are from the tundras, past the mountains of the Iron Lands. They're an ancient clan, older than even the Senju. Indeed, they roamed these forests long before the princess was birthed."

Juhi couldn't help his snicker. It wasn't like Yasou to admit inferiority to anyone, even in age. "Buuuut?"

" _But_ ," she sneered, and straightened to her full wolfish length, her tail lifted as proud as a flag. The splash of white on her throat was only a mockery of a vulnerability, bared to them without fear. Juhi felt a shock of energy run through him, from his neck to his toes.

"We are the Inuzuka," snarled the ninken, "the only pack which rules this earth. And when the time comes for you to challenge your father for this clan's throne, you would do well to remember that."

* * *

Uchiha Masako liked to bargain. Every day she attended to the gods' stone shrines, placing bowl after bowl, bottle after bottle. Her back grew arched from her strenuous bows, and her prayers for safety were fervent.

Then she donned her sterile clothes and turned children to ashes with a cold, nightly fire called _Amaterasu_. With it, she killed and burned for her client's whims and the weight of the yen in her pockets.

Masako prayed most often for her husband and son, who found themselves caught between two angry blades in the midst of the third war. They, too, pleaded to Amaterasu—let me live, oh _kami_ , please! Please save me! But Amaterasu could not hear them.

When they fell in battle, the kunoichi took her offerings from the shrines. She never went back.

"No spirits ever tasted your sake and rice," said Ushiwaka, when he saw her walk away. "Who were they supposed to be for, anyway? You only ever prayed to the stone."

Madara birthed a monster of chakra; he named it Susanoo, after the demon-slayer. Nami the sake-brewer, who had once sacrificed herself for the good of her village, became Izanami, an illusion of rebuke. In the compounds of his clan, Uchiha Seihou, at the age of ninety-three, researched the possibility of the ultimate genjutsu, the absolute technique. _A pit of darkness in the mind_ , he mused, and in the margin of his notes he wrote: _Tsukuyomi, the god of the moon, could strike down any human in his path._

The Uchiha danced with fire in their teeth and blood in their nails. Moegami, god of flames, he of wings and conflagrations, rose from the inferno of his shame, and spoke: "Uchiha, disgrace of your forefathers! Have you forgotten the warriors who conceived you? The protectors of Kamiki, the vanquishers of Orochi! The immortal men and women whose names you have depraved! Tell me, o' Uchiha, are their battles now for naught?"

As he burned with humiliation, the crows and their spirit ancestors wheeled across the sky. "Susano'o, savior of his village!" one called. "His humble Tohenboku, strapped proudly to his back!"

"Nami the sake-brewer!" crowed another. "She walked at Shiranui's side, glowing like a sunrise!"

"Tsukuyomi, Nagi's mighty blade!" cried a third. "It slew the evil Orochi and cut its soft belly from inside! Amaterasu gave it a new, divine life, and shall bear it on her back!"

Moegami turned to the crows, who were long and deep of memory, and asked, "My crows, do you remember the dawn of the day? Though the bodies of your grandfathers have not survived you, you have kept alive their minds and eyes. You who would live to see the end of the world, do you remember what it is like to see the sun in the sky?"

"We remember the sight of the sun in the sky," they cried as they swooped through the air. "Amaterasu-oomikami, the mother of us all!" The crows were so numerous that they shaped the wind, their black wings bowed around the currents.

And the phoenix Moegami spread his magnificent wings and said, "Come, and let us remind Susano'o's children of their honor." And then he dove from the Celestial Plain, and all the black spirits harked and heeled to his wake.

In the heat of the war, the children of the Uchiha signed hundreds of contracts with the crows; they bit down on their thumbs and smeared their blood on the summoning scrolls.

* * *

One by one, the gods heard the cries of the mortal land in despair. Tachigami the cleaver, small in size yet mighty in heart, plummeted to the lower realm on the tip of his tsuguri. Kasugami, too, fell from the heavens. As they touched upon the earth, in the Land of Water, mist undulated like a tide over the land. Seven swordsman passed down their blades, from bloody hand to bloody hand.

In the aftermath of the third war, Kabegami was next to fall. In every village, civilians rose. They sowed their seeds, reaped their harvests, and buried their dead with steady hands. The temples were rebuilt. The shrines were fed with soap. Madam Shijimi was gifted a pretty tabby named Tora.

Then the Hanagami, gods of music and spring, flung themselves from the Celestial Plains. The trees clasped the corpses of the shinobi in their roots. Desert flowers bloomed in the baking ground of Sunagakure.

Bakugami, he of bombs, smoke and oil, fell head-first. In Iwagakure, a shinobi called Deidara awoke, his blood rolling in his veins.

Itegami, the ox god of blizzards, landed in the snow of the Land of Iron. The samurai cleaned their swords. Far away, a boy named Haku spread frost from his fingertips.

Yumigami, rabbit goddess of the moon, took a bounding leap into the air. At the entrance of his cave, Uchiha Madara glanced up. The eye of the crescent smiled back at him.

The thirteen celestial brush gods roamed the flesh of the earth, snapping demons between their teeth and claws. Yet without the sun, they were at the mercy of the dark. "Amaterasu!" they called out to her from below. "Origin of all that is good and mother to us all!"

Amaterasu lunged to join them, but Ushiwaka pulled her back.

" _Almost_ ," he breathed, like a prayer.

* * *

"This is your brother," his mother whispered tenderly. Itachi peered at the pale blue wrap in her arms. He saw a ruddy, squished, disgruntled face and a little wisp of black hair.

His brother was weird to look at. "What's his name?" Itachi asked.

"Sasuke," his mother replied. She smiled at him.

* * *

"Naruto," murmured Uzumaki Kushina as she ran a finger down his cheek. "Naruto, Naruto…my _son_."

* * *

At the moment of Naruto's birth, Amaterasu felt within her a beacon of delight and despair, and the most vibrant thought of love for this world overcame her. It was a day of darkness, a day of light—a day which started and ended with the sun, just like most other days, but this was both the nadir and the pinnacle of a millenium.

Ushiwaka turned to her.

It was time.

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And this was a war which was fought on both heaven and earth, by all beings—gods, demons, and man. This was a war which would not reincarnate.

It began long ago, with a tree.

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Sakura was walking home from the park when she dropped her tiny glass ornament. It was a prize she won from a game of Ninja Cards with the neighborhood kids. The surface sparkled like a blue star when she held it up to the sunlight. Then something big and white had shoved past her from behind, and now it was scattered in pieces all over the ground.

With a shout, Sakura turned around. The big white thing wasn't there anymore, though. There were just some market people wandering around. She turned back to her broken ornament and tried not to cry.

It was just a stupid toy, of course, but she'd wanted to hang it on her wall. It was so _cool_ -looking. She scrunched up her face so that if people looked at her, they'd think she was just angry instead of miserable.

Then, there was a loud whooshing sound in her ears. Sakura looked up and gasped.

A big, white wolf was standing in front of her. It wasn't like any of the ninken she'd seen before. This one had red markings around its eyes, and a big circular stone on its back that was on _fire_. Its fur was so clean that it gave off a little glow. Sakura made a squeaking sound.

The wolf made a snuffing sound, and bent its head to look at the glass pieces. "That was mine," Sakura told it. She tried not to sound too mean, though. The ninken was really beautiful, even though it had been the one that pushed her from behind and made her drop it. It might've been rude, but she couldn't stop staring in awe.

The glass pieces shifted, then swirled around in the air. Sakura gasped again. They were fitting themselves back together, and there was a lot of inky black smoke coming off of them, too.

As the last shard fit into place, the swirly orb dropped right into her hands. There wasn't a single scratch on it. "Wow," Sakura whispered, running her fingers all over the surface. "How did you do that? That was amazing!"

The wolf licked the back of her hand. She giggled.

Then, all of a sudden, it turned its head to the market street, and gave a huge growl. Sakura almost leaped out of her skin. She staggered back as the wolf started to glow brighter and brighter, and soon there were other colors coming out of its fur, too, like red and blue and some yellow. It started running. Sakura had to squint because it turned gold as it ran off.

"Wait!" she shouted. The ninken didn't hear her. She ran after it, pushing past the people with their grocery bags, but it was way too fast for her. She tried to chase it anyway, following the white and gold flashes along the rooftops.

Nobody seemed to notice the wolf, which was weird. They weren't looking in its direction as it passed by. Sakura turned a corner and lost sight of it. "Where'd it go?" she asked a nearby lady.

The lady looked at her. "Where'd what go?"

"The big, white wolf!" She waved her hands, almost too out of breath to talk. "It—It had a fire thing on its back! It went past here, didn't it?"

The lady leaned down a little and started talking in a fake grown-up's voice. "Sorry, dearie, but I didn't see any wolves around here. Have you tried looking somewhere else?"

"Fine!" Sakura shouted, startling the woman. Then she ran off without apologizing. She was too excited to feel bad about it, though. That ninken must've had a summoner or an Inuzuka guardian, so maybe it was running off to meet with them. Maybe she could ask them what that cool smoke trick was.

Sakura was trying to sprint up the staircase behind the dango stalls when she ran into somebody, _again_. At least she didn't drop her ornament this time. It was getting kind of sweaty in her hand. "Move!" she puffed, pushing past the person in her way.

They grabbed the back of her jacket collar and wouldn't let go. "Now, hold on just a minute—"

With a scowl, Sakura squinted up at the man. They were standing in a place with a lot of shade, but she could still see pretty well. He was wearing a mask and a headdress, and he had the nerve to smile at her, too. His eyebrows were painted. "You're gonna make me miss the wolf!" she snapped at him.

The man tilted his head. "The wolf?" he asked. He had a weird accent that she'd never heard before.

"It was red and white and pretty, but it was like nobody else could see it," Sakura confessed, pushing at his dark pink hakama. He had a sword tied around his waist, too, but no way was she touching that. "I was chasing it, but it's probably long gone by now." She glared at him for good measure. "It was _really_ pretty."

"Oh! Oh, no, I know which wolf you mean, _ma fifille_." The man's smile widened, even though it looked like he was trying to keep a straight face. "You must mean Amaterasu, the beautiful hunter. She's quite a sight, isn't she? Unfortunately she is a little busy right now, so you may have to wait before you can see her again."

He let go of her collar. Sakura leaned forward. "You _know_ it? I mean, her? Are you her summoner?"

The man chuckled. " _Désolé_ , but she's no summon of mine. I'm simply a very good friend of hers. In fact, just between you and I…" He flashed his bright white teeth. "Amaterasu isn't a summon at all. She isn't a ninken, either."

Sakura frowned. "What? But then what is she?"

"Why, she's something only very few people can see," replied the man. "You must be an extraordinary girl if you caught a glimpse of those red markings of hers."

"She had a round rock thing, too! It was burning up!"

He nodded. "Her Divine Instrument, of course. She has quite a few of those. They're par-ti-cu-lar-ly useful in defeating those pesky imps and chimeras hopping about."

Abruptly, Sakura pulled back and crossed her arms. She stuck her chin out at him. "Are you making fun of me?"

The man frowned back. He actually looked kind of hurt. " _Moi? Non_ , not at all."

Sakura refused to feel bad. "There aren't any imps or chimeras in Konoha. That's ridiculous. I'm not _stupid_ , you know."

The man looked thoughtful. "You don't believe in the spirits, _ma petite_?"

"Just because you're dressed like a tengu doesn't mean you _are_ a tengu," she retorted.

He coughed into the sleeve of his kimono. " _Eh bien_ , that is…that is a keen observation. But, ah, you cannot expect spirits to show themselves to this world, can you? Evil spirits do exist, as do good spirits, but they usually can't be seen. That is why you have the prayers and the ceremonies at the shrines, to reach them in the next plane."

Sakura just glowered even harder. "Are you one of those priests who try to get little kids like me to donate money to your temple?"

The man coughed again. "No, no, no, _du tout_. Certainly not. You seem suspicious of me now, so let me ask you this…" To her surprise, he sat down on the stairs with a sigh. "Why do you suppose nobody but you and I could see that wolf, hm?"

"Because—" Sakura put her hands on her hips and wracked her head for anything. "Genjutsu?"

"Amaterasu is no mere illusion, _ma fifille_. If she were, she would have been shattered by your secret ninja by now, instead of running around like a wild girl in the streets."

"Then…Then…" She sat down. The man put on his wide rice hat, which he had slung on a string over his back. "I dunno. Are you, um. Are you telling me she's a spirit?"

"A very powerful one," he agreed. "You are lucky to see her in her real form. Most others see her as a plain white dog, or when she is hunting evil spirits, they do not see her at all. _Most_ only see her real form when they know what she truly is. A _kami_."

Sakura tried to think of some other explanation. Her next-door neighbor always told her that the gods and spirits weren't real—not even the rainbow Quilin that her parents showed her in the picture books. "That's…That's _outlandish!"_

"You may think so. But I have seen and lived with the kami all my lucky life." The man leaned back on his elbows and tipped his hat back. "What is your name, _ma petite?"_

"Oh, um. Haruno Sakura."

Suddenly, he was beaming at her. "Sakura? The blossom of the spring. That is a lovely name, you know."

She flushed and hated herself for it. "Th-Thanks. Um, what's yours, mister?"

"Waka," he offered. "It's short for Ushiwaka."

The birds on the rooftop took off. Sakura boggled at him and pointed. "Nuh-uh! You can't say you're the legendary _Ushiwakamaru_ just 'cause you're both kinda related to tengu. That's too cheap!"

The man, Waka, flashed his teeth again. "So you acknowledge that tengu exist? Tricky creatures, those birds."

"Argh! I never acknowledged 'em! They do _not_ exist!"

He laughed this time. It was a nice sound, Sakura had to admit. "I'll make you a once-in-a-lifetime offer, _ma fifille_ ," he said. "Once Amaterasu has finished squabbling with the imps, I'll introduce you to her. You'll like her, I think. She's quite kind."

Sakura bit her lip. She didn't believe a word about this whole demon-spirit thing, but at least Waka had seen the wolf, too. Otherwise she might've thought it all happened in her imagination. "She fixed my glass thing," she said as she showed him the ornament. "Amaterasu ran into me and made me drop it, but then she came back and fixed it. I dunno how, though. There was a lot of…weird, black smoky stuff."

Waka's eyes widened. "Holy smoke," he corrected. "It's a part of her technique. My, my—if you can see that too, you are truly an extraordinary girl."

With a snort, she blew up her cheeks and refused to blush again. "You're really gonna introduce me to her?"

" _Oui, bien sûr_."

"Hey, you speak a different language, too. You're really fishy."

Waka grinned, clacking his tengu-shoes on the steps. They made a fun sound. "That's because I've come from far away. I'm a travelling storyteller, as well as a prophet. One-hundred-percent accuracy in all of my predictions." He tipped his hat.

Sakura bit her lip again, this time to stop herself from giggling. "Nuh-uh! Prophets are so full of baloney. You gotta prove it!"

"Prove it?"

"Yep! You gotta—you gotta tell my future, right now, and then I'll believe you."

"Right now? _Eh_ , what a request!" Waka gave her a long look, his eyes flickering across her face. It started making her nervous. She bounced both of her legs. Finally he said, in a too-quiet voice, " _The rose grows between the sunflower and the bramble_."

Sakura stared at him. He grimaced at himself. "Oh, dear. That was a little too strange, wasn't it? Let me edit that one."

"What?" she squawked. "You're gonna edit your own prophecy? You can't do that!"

"Ah, wait, here's a better version. _The pink petal is thrown out the window, and thus lands between the bowl of ramen and the abandoned, angst-ridden diary_."

She threw her arms into the sky. "That doesn't even sound deep! That's a terrible prophecy!"

"One-hundred-percent accuracy," he reminded her. "Now you must wait for it to happen."

"I dun' even know _what's_ gonna happen! You're a terrible prophet."

From up ahead, she heard a distant barking and howling sound. "It seems like Amaterasu has finished with her business," Waka announced as he stood. He pulled her to her feet, too. "You know, it has been a long time since Amaterasu was seen by anyone other than I. I think she'll be delighted to know that another person out there knows what she looks like."

"Um, oh. Okay." Sakura followed him up the steps. "I betcha she's actually your special summon and you're just pulling my legs, though."

She couldn't see Waka's face, but she was pretty sure he was smiling. "I could be, I could not be. But if you would open your eyes as wide as you can, _ma fifille_ , you might see some astonishing things."

The sun flashed in her eyes. Sakura tucked herself into his shadow. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you may not know this yet," Waka murmured. "But before there is a golden age, there must first be a war. _Oui, en effet_ , a great battle is being fought today on both heaven and earth. This is a one-of-a-kind war which Amaterasu and I fight. And it all began long ago, with a tree…"

"What tree?" she asked.

"The Shinju tree."

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 **Prana** was first described in early Hindu texts as the organic life force that is conducted through regions of the human body, as well as in inanimate forms. It exists as a concept in many Eastern practices, such as martial arts, spiritual rites, and traditional medicine.

 **Ushiwakamaru** was the early name of a Heian/Kamakura samurai general known as Minamoto no Yoshitsune. In legend, he is said to have journeyed to Mount Kurama as a child, where he trained with the mythical tengu (天狗): winged, bird-like creatures associated with the supernatural.


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